The moonlight was so incredible last night that I should have weathered the cold and tromped through a wood. Instead, I stayed warm inside, merely peering out at the amazing glow cast by the first full moon of the year. Stunning.
Coincidentally, on Wednesday I read How the Moon Regained Her Shape by Janet Ruth Heller (a beautiful Native American inspired fable) to a group of inner city third graders. It was our first meeting but I will be visiting them monthly, bringing a book with me to read, learning their names and personalities. Already I have a sense of a few of them. There’s the inevitable little boy with all the answers – bright eyed and enthusiastic – furiously waving his hand in the air to speak at any chance. The one I most want to engage is the girl in the back who battled to keep her eyes open, her head resting on the desk through my hour there. What kept this little one from getting a good night’s sleep? I worry, imagining the worst. I know it is not possible for me to fix what is wrong in her life by I hope that maybe one day I can bring a book that is an anchor for her, or at least brightens dark nights like the light of last night’s moon.
One day a month – is all I am able to commit to and that doesn’t feel like much. Ultimately, I imagine I will probably remember more of our time together than them. In the strange glow cast by last night’s moon, I can’t help believing that some magical synergy is in the works. As I looked out the window, I imagined each of the children from that classroom also catching sight of the moon and remembering the book we read together and realizing the possibilities offered by books and nature – a sense of magic offered beyond the immediate. Did they feel it too?